The Lost Witness (16 page)

“Keep your eyes on the sidewalk,” he said. “Same side. Half a block up.”

She followed the sidewalk up to the corner. Two beats later, she realized that she had been picked up by the camera and was in the shot. She remembered walking back from the Blackbird
Café after the autopsy and her run-in with Denny Ramira, the crime beat reporter from
The Times.
The kid was eyeing her as they finally reached each other on the sidewalk. But this
time he didn’t turn away. Instead, he held the look before making a hard left and vanishing into the underground garage.

What struck Lena most about the surveillance video wasn’t the lack of attention paid on the messenger by the two badges working the front desk. Nor was it the coincidence of her passing
the kid on the street. Both were innocent acts that carried no meaning or context without the benefit of hindsight. What struck her most was the effort the kid had made to deliver the package to
her. She thought about what she found in the mailer. Jane Doe’s driver’s license and the short video of her abduction recorded with his cell phone. It seemed clear that the kid lived on
the Westside. That he had made every effort, however unsuccessful, to avoid their surveillance cameras. So why didn’t he take the easy way out and just send the package through the mail?

As Lena considered the possibilities, new questions surfaced. If the kid possessed a guilty conscience, then why was he stealing the victim’s money? He would have seen the balance on the
ATM machines and known that there was a lot of it. If he wanted the money, then why did he take the time and risk to hand-deliver the package? If he hadn’t made the delivery he could have
bled the account dry over two or three weeks before anyone noticed.

It was another loose end in a case of loose ends. Another detail that didn’t make sense.

She turned back to the monitor. Rollins held the shot on the garage for another minute or two, but a car never came out. Their witness was in the wind.

“I fast forwarded through the next thirty minutes,” Rollins said. “Every car that exited the garage turned up Temple Street, but he wasn’t in any of them. Maybe he just
went into the food court and got something to eat.”

“Or, maybe he knew the cameras were on the street and was looking for a way to disappear,” Rhodes said. “How fast can you make prints of his face?”

“I’ve already got them. I made the prints when I pulled the shots.”

Rollins reached for the photographs in the printer tray and passed them out. When he glanced at the doorway, Lena turned and saw Klinger begin walking into the room. He had been watching them.
Eavesdropping. He hadn’t started moving until he was noticed. Until she turned.

Rollins handed the lieutenant a copy of the image. Klinger examined the photo, then looked at Lena as if nothing was wrong.

“This isn’t a serial case, is it?”

“No,” she said. “Everything points to someone who’s highly motivated.”

“But how do you account for the fact that he dismembered the body?”

“He needed a way to get rid of her. He’s doing things the way he knows how.”

It sat there for a moment with Klinger tossing it over.

“Well, at least you’re making progress, Gamble. Everyone understands the setbacks. I’ll see if we can get this picture of the witness on the news tonight. Maybe someone will
know who he is. We’re due for a little luck. Maybe they’ll call.”

She met Klinger’s eyes, thinking about the tap on her telephone and those two detectives from Internal Affairs. She tried to get a read on him, but only picked up this odd sensation of
goodwill. She didn’t believe it. And she didn’t trust it. When his cell phone rang and he stepped away to take the call, his eyes never changed and remained clear and steady and free of
any irony.

Lena let the thought go and turned back to Rollins. “What’s the status of the video sent by the witness?”

“That’s why I’m here today. That’s what I wanted to show you.”

He turned back to the computer, minimizing the open windows and launching another program. Two more windows opened on the large screen. The first photograph was the still that had been sent to
the TV stations. The shot taken from the parking lot of the killer standing over Jane Doe’s body in the dark of night. As Lena gazed at it, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. The
man remained hopelessly out of focus. And the building with the neon sign on its roof still appeared lost in digital noise.

When she looked at the second image, she stood up and moved closer. There were six faces on the screen. Six men with similar features and grayish blond hair. The head shots had the look and feel
of a six-pack—a photographic lineup—for witnesses attempting to make an ID.

She turned to Rollins. “What is this?”

“The man who murdered Jane Doe.”

Rhodes moved in beside her, eyeing the screen. “Which one?”

“All of them,” Rollins said. He pointed to the photograph taken from the witness’s video clip. “The image we pulled from the video may be out of focus, but the
information’s still there. This six-pack is a digital reconstruction of the killer’s face. The six most likely ways to configure the man’s face based on the information in that
photo.”

Klinger ditched his phone call and stepped in beside Rollins. Lena turned back to the monitor. The images were ultraclear. Ultravivid. As she examined the faces, committing them to memory, it
seemed too good to be true. The young forensic analyst had everyone’s attention now.

“The man you’re looking for resembles each of these six faces in some fundamental way,” he said. “We won’t know how close they are until you actually find him. But
I’ll make you this guarantee. When you finally meet this guy, he’ll look familiar. Very familiar.”

“Like they came from the same mother,” Rhodes said. “Different but the same.”

“Exactly. Variations on a theme of murder.”

Lena traded quick looks with Rhodes. “None of these head shots look anything like Fontaine. We’ll need to get a copy of this six-pack over to USC Medical Center. If he trained there
before going overseas, this might be enough to trigger an ID.”

Klinger shook his head. “Barrera already briefed the chief on a possible connection with the hospital. That the man we’re looking for has a medical background. The chief wants to
handle this on his own. That means any mention of the medical center never leaves this room.”

Lena and Rhodes exchanged another look. But this time she agreed with Klinger and understood the chief’s motive. The doer’s only connection with the medical center would have been
through a program sponsored by the Department of Defense. There was no reason to jeopardize the hospital’s reputation just because someone may or may not have spent a few months working in
the emergency room. The situation could be handled quietly, detached from the homicide, and achieve the same result.

Lena turned back to the forensic analyst. “Is there anything more you can pull out of this original,” she said. “Anything that would help point us to its location?”

Rollins grinned. Then he grabbed the mouse and zoomed in on a large white spot in the blue-black sky over the building.

“I’ve been working on it all morning. This spot is actually a jet making an approach with its landing gear down. When I reconstructed the shadow and counted the number of wheels, I
realized that it’s a big plane. The only airport that can handle something this size is LAX. So this place has to be somewhere directly east of the airport. Somewhere within a mile or two of
LAX.”

“It’s the Cock-a-doodle-do,” Klinger said.

Everyone turned to the chief’s adjutant. His eyes were riveted to the photo.

“It’s the Cock-a-doodle-do,” he repeated with certainty. “The best chicken pieces in LA. It’s east of LAX and right under the flight path just off the one-oh-five
on Prairie Avenue. Internal Affairs has been watching the place for two years. Cops go there for takeout.”

Lena shot Klinger a look. “Why is Internal Affairs so interested in where cops go for takeout?”

“Because it’s a whorehouse,” he said.

T
he murder of Jane Doe was suddenly more complex.

Lena may have been green, but she had enough experience to know that
the art of closing any case was to keep things simple. To let her imagination and gut instincts light the way, but only move forward with what she knew.

Dr. Joseph Fontaine was trying to hide the fact that he knew the victim. When questioned about the murder, he lied, threatened to hire an attorney, and rented two bodyguards. Jane Doe had stolen
an identity and deposited fifty thousand dollars into her checking account six days before her murder. The source of the money had been intentionally hidden, pointing to blackmail. Based on a
series of computer-generated images, the man who abducted her from the parking lot didn’t necessarily resemble Fontaine. Yet, the man who actually committed the murder and cut up the
woman’s body shared Fontaine’s medical background and military experience.

Lena spotted the neon rooster on the roof as she swept around the exit ramp. After getting an update from his partner, Rhodes closed his cell phone and leaned against the passenger door.

“Tito just left Fontaine’s house. The doctor refused to talk.”

“Did he see him?”

Rhodes shook his head. “Fontaine wouldn’t let him on the property. He didn’t get past the front gate.”

“How did he think Fontaine sounded?”

“He couldn’t get a read. Fontaine’s neighbors told him that they used to be friends, but something happened a couple years back. He got weird and dumped everybody. The wife
next door remembers walking into the kitchen at a party. Fontaine was having a full-blown conversation with himself. Tito says she used the words,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Then everybody in the neighborhood thinks he’s crazy.”

“Sounds like it,” Rhodes said. “Have you thought about what could happen when Klinger releases that photo of our witness and the TV stations pick it up?”

He didn’t need to ask. It had been on her mind ever since they left Parker Center and she still felt uneasy about it. They were giving the killer a heads-up. Once the photograph of the
witness was made public, the kid’s life would be in jeopardy. It was unintentional, of course. The only real way of locating him unless they got lucky and either caught him using the ATM card
again or driving the victim’s car, which remained unaccounted for.

“He’s not coming in on his own,” she said.

“No, he’s not. There’s too much money in that bank account.”

She could hear the worry in Rhodes’s voice, but tried to ignore it. They were passing the Cock-a-doodle-do on the other side of the street. She drove down to the end of the lane divider,
then made a U-turn and floored it back up the block. The property was hidden away from the world, nestled in between Prairie Avenue and the 105 Freeway. As she pulled into the entrance and glided
down the hill, the place seemed more like a family restaurant than a brothel. It wasn’t until she pulled forward and noticed a second building behind the restaurant that she realized Klinger
had been right. It looked like a low-end motel without a triple-A rating. And the girl leading a man into a room on the second floor wearing stiletto heels and a sheer top didn’t appear to
have luggage or a maid cart.

“The best chicken pieces in LA.,” Rhodes whispered.

He wasn’t watching the couple enter the room. He was reading the words on the neon sign over the restaurant. But she caught the smile and laughed, guessing that he was trying to make her
feel better. Then she turned and spotted the Dumpster underneath the trees at the rear of the parking lot. Her file was on the seat between them, and she pulled a copy of the still photograph taken
from the witness’s video clip. Glancing at the image, she measured the angle and passed it to Rhodes as they got out.

The lot was nearly empty. The air, cool and breezy. She looked up into the sky and saw a jet trying to find its balance in the wind. Its wheels were down, the airport just a few miles west. As
she moved around the car and gazed back at the buildings, she had all the verification she needed.

This was the site of the abduction. All the pieces were in the right place. Everything was in focus now.

Rhodes passed the photograph back, reaching for his cell phone. “Looks like we need SID.”

She didn’t say anything. While he made the call, she walked over to the Dumpster. The lids were open, the container empty. Taking a step back, she calculated the approximate location of
Jane Doe’s body. She knelt down and examined the broken asphalt, the patches of weeds and dead grass. The trash had probably been picked up every day since the abduction and murder, but the
ground could still yield enough trace evidence to confirm that the crime started here.

“They’re on their way,” Rhodes said.

She looked up and saw the detective standing in the sunlight.

“Klinger was right,” she said quietly.

“I guess everybody gets it right once in a while.”

The door to the restaurant opened. When they turned, a young waitress was staring at them from the top of the steps and appeared concerned.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she said. “There’s no loitering here, and we’re not really open yet. This is private property.”

“This is a crime scene,” Lena said.

“It’s a what?”

She stood up and called out, “A crime scene. We need to talk to you.”

The waitress’s face changed. Even from across the lot, Lena could see her body freeze up. Returning to the car for her file, she slipped the photograph inside and joined Rhodes and the
girl at the top of the steps.

“I’m only a waitress,” she said in a shaky voice. “That’s all I do. Just wait on tables.”

Rhodes glanced at Lena, then back at the girl, everything nice and easy.

“Relax,” he said. “We’re not here for that. Let’s go inside and talk.”

The girl searched their faces. Lena wondered if she didn’t see a sense of expectation in her blue-green eyes. A certain reach as if she already understood why they were here and always
knew that they would come.